Lion’s Head

physiography of Cape Town

The first settlement of Cape Town was situated between Table Mountain and Table Bay. It was bounded on the northwest by the ridges known as Lion’s Head and Lion’s Rump (later called Signal Hill), on the north by Table Bay, on the south by Devil’s Peak, and on the east by marshlands and the sandy Cape Flats beyond. The nearest tillable land was on the lower eastern slopes of Devil’s Peak and...

relation to Table Mountain

...Mountain’s stark, scarred, 2-mile- (3-km-) long northern face contrasts with the fertile summit plateau broken by small valleys and streams. Two subsidiary peaks are detached from the main mountain: Lion’s Head (2,195 feet [669 metres]) to the northwest, declining northward to Signal Hill (Lion’s Rump); and Devil’s Peak (3,281 feet; formerly Windberg, or Windy Mountain) to the northeast. To the...